I found Kathleen Parker's most recent column incredibly interesting.

I've been fascinated and giddy, even in her glory days of the Republican Convention, at John McCain's wacky pick of Sarah Palin as his running mate.  It was clear from the outset that she was completely out of her league despite the fringe right's crazy continuing enthusiasm.

I'm stating the obvious.  It's been happening for a long time where the splits have become more and more evident with the disasterous Bush/Cheney years.  The 'realists' like Brent Scowcroft, Colin Powell, Jon Dean, etc. (the list goes on and on) have dropped off like flies from the extremists who have been in power.

To cut it short, in recent weeks as very prominent conservatives and Republicans have finally just threw up their arms in disgust as the Sarah Palin comedy show with more than a little help from lying angry guy McCain has made their party a laughing stock.  Palin has exposed the party as obsolete, devoid of ideas (non-white people) and running on the fumes of religious fundamentalists, gun freaks, greedy corporate types, overeager war mongers.

I think the column by conservative Kathleen Parker who joined George Will, David Brooks, Andrew Sullivan and a growing list of disgusted Republicans in telling the obvious  truth about Sarah Palin–she is not ready.  Parker has gotten loads of hate mail and wrote about it.  It comes from the fringe Hannity, Limbaugh, Hugh Hewitt, Fox News crowd who John McCain bent over backwards to try to win over, even willing to give up his precious "maverick" image and probably his true ideals.  

John McCain is going to lose.  After the election he's going to hate himself for selling his soul to the devil.  It will be like waking up after going out on an all night drunk and finding that you slept with the ugliest, fattest most disgusting guy in the bar while all of your friends sat back and watched.  His image is forever tarnished and the John McCain of 2000 can never be resurrected.  

As for the Republican Party, this was bound to happen.  Bill Maher has spoken for years now about how real Republican ideals are not always so crazy but they've been hijacked by the far right.  If Richard Nixon was running today he'd be considered a flaming liberal.  It will be interesting to see if the party completely implodes.  They started going nuts after they got slaughtered in 2006 even with the Tom Delay redistricting.    Republicans are used to winning and to lose to someone like Barack Obama who has inspired a new generation of voters is going to frustrate them even more as their losses will probably continue for a long time.  

Sarah Palin is a dumb bell, but as much as she's going to help Obama/Biden get into the White House, she is probably going to help accelerate the Republicans inevitable civil war that's been brewing for a long time.